


Magneto: Master Of Magnetism VS. Innocent Gift Wrap

by PeaceAndLongLife



Series: Christmas One-Shots [2]
Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Angry Charles Turns Into Flirty Charles, Cherik - Freeform, Christmas Fluff, Erik Is a Hot Dad, M/M, Pardon My German, dadneto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 18:44:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8633905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeaceAndLongLife/pseuds/PeaceAndLongLife
Summary: "Is there a reason you came pounding on my door at two a.m or did you just want to gawk at me?" Erik raises a curious brow."Yeah, will you shut up? I'm trying to sleep." Charles grumpily complains.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Original Prompt: Character A can't wrap gifts to save their life. Character B is their neighbor and can help

 

 

_Himmel Hergott nochmal!_

  Charles groans and presses the pillow harder against his ears, not that I'd help. His neighbour was projecting his frustrations so loudly and obnoxiously that'd his thoughts would just slip past every carefully placed shield and directly into his own mind.

   Charles could easily handle a loud mind, every once in a while it was normal to stumble upon someone with strong emotions, but this situation was different. It was a constant and unyielding string of bombardment. At first, it'd only happen very few days, a rouge thought here, a stray emotion here, easy things to handle. Then it began everyday, then a couple times daily and now, Charles seemed to have a lifetime subscription to the play by play recap of his angry, German neighbour.

   It didn't take Charles long to realize that the amount of frustration was directly related to the amount of days till Christmas. The less days till Christmas, the more overload of adult angst he received.

   Moments like this reminded him of the horrible mistake of not taking up his sister, Raven's, offer of accompanying her for Christmas in Italy with Azazel. It probably would've been a lot more fun than waking up several times each hour to a very colourful and occasionally creative vocabulary. Maybe if he took notes, he'd be fluent by New Years.

_Leck mich am Arsch!_

   "Oh come on!" Charles yells to an empty house, throwing his pillow as hard as he could, knocking a picture frame of him and his sister as kids off the wall. It shattered into tiny glass shards, but he couldn't care any less. The mess would still be there in the morning, he'll deal with it then.

   It was 2:03 am and Charles was so desperate for sleep that he even considered - for a very split second - about entering his annoying neighbours mind and carefully flipping the switch from awake to sleep for at least a good eight hours.

_Das ist ja Kinderkacke!_

   Charles almost screams out loud, throwing his blankets off angrily in one swift swoosh. He hops out of his warm bed and into the cold of his room.

   Charles slips on the first pair of footwear he could find and storms out into the night in just his t-shirt and pyjama pants. It was snowing heavily. The ground was covered in a thick blanket of undisturbed snow. He feels only a little guilty for trudging across his neighbours snowy lawn.

   Without any hesitation, Charles pounds angrily against the idiots door. A few seconds later, the disgruntled German man reveals himself. The heavy set bags under his eyes and scruffy two o'clock shadow didn't do anything to distract from his genuinely handsome features. "-What?" He says impatiently, in perfect English, however there was the strong German accent that Charles expected.

   Charles falters, only just realizing now that his neighbour was tiredly standing before him half-naked _._

 _"_ Is there a reason you came pounding on my door at two a.m or did you just want to gawk at me?" He raises a curious eyebrow.

   This startles Charles into remembering why he was mad in the first place. He stands up as straight as possible and pushes his chest out, it was a futile attempt at intimidating his _very_ surprisingly fit neighbour _._ "Yeah, will _you shut up?_ I'm trying to sleep."

   "Umm, I think you might have the wrong house."

  Charles groans in frustration. "No. Would it kill you to keep your _thoughts_ down? I've been hearing nothing but a colourful commentary of whatever the hell you've been doing all night." The words spilled out of his mouth so quickly he knew there was no taking them back. He'd just revealed his powers, and nothing good usually comes after that. He was done for in this town.

   Annoying neighbour licks his lips in thought. Charles couldn't tell from outward appearance if he was in any danger. Sure, he could overpower anyone without a thought, but using his powers without consent felt dirty and wrong. "I'm sorry. I didn't know I was projecting, it's just my ex-wife dropped off our kids this morning, it's Christmas Eve and I wasn't expecting them at all but they're expecting all these presents so I had to do some last minute shopping and now I'm trying to wrap the gifts but I don't know what I'm doing wrong, taping paper to objects is a lot harder then Santa makes it look." If he didn't explain everything with such defeat in his expression Charles would have been impressed that he'd gotten through it all in a single breath.

   "Maybe I can help." Charles offers.

   "Really? You don't know what that means to me. How about you come in before you get frostbite?" He steps back, making way for Charles to enter. "I'm Erik." What a perfect name to accompany a perfect body. Don't get it wrong, he was still furious, but he was also just a tiny bit turned on.

   "Charles, and uh, thanks." Charles hadn't noticed how frozen he actually was until he was hit with a wave of warmth as he steps inside Erik's home.

   The only light illuminating the living room was from the lights hung on a large Christmas tree. The dim lighting did somewhat help distract from the disastrous Christmas chaos spread across all available floor space. Wrapping paper, bows, ribbons, tape and presents were haphazardly cluttered about.

   A gust of wind and snowflakes blow through the open door, picking small scraps up in the air. "Sorry, I'll go close it." Charles begins to turn back but Erik was faster.

   "Don't worry, I'll get it." Before Charles had a chance to point out how how absurd he was being and how significantly closer he was, Erik flicks his hand and the door silently latches closed. He looks back at Erik in shock. "You're not the only mutant on the block, Mr. Telepath." The way he delivered the sentence made it seem as if there were _still_ more.

   "What can you do? If your power is closing doors...I really must apologize in advance." Charles begins to laugh but cuts himself off short when he realizes how loud he was being.

   Erik rubs his stubbly chin with a cocky smirk. "No, that's not it. I can manipulate metal and magnetic fields. My kids have taken up calling me _Magneto: Master Of Magnetism_."

   "Very clever. So your not freaked out that I can read minds? It's okay if you feel weird, just know that I feel even weirder about it."

   "Don't worry about it." Erik idly kicks some rejected wrapping paper around. "My best friend- uh, Emma- she's a telepath too, but unlike you, she loves messing around in here." He gestures to his head. "I can kind of tell if someone else is eavesdropping and you're in the clear."

   Charles finally relaxes, all remaining fear and doubt washing away with Erik's words. "If you want I can teach you how to put up shields sometime. Or if you're really crazy, I know a few tricks that will really freak your friend out next time she tries spying on you."

   "Really? You'd do that? _And_ help me wrap up all these presents? You're too precious for this world, I'm never letting you leave." Erik feels his stomach flutter when Charles' cheeks heat up in an embarrassed blush.

   "Umm-" Charles coughs awkwardly. "-should we start wrapping?"

   "Hmm?"

   "Wrapping. Should we start wrapping now?" He repeats.

   "Oh, uh, yeah."

   Charles drops down to the floor on his knees and _damn,_ Erik _really_ hopes that he wasn't projecting his thoughts just then. He sits down across from his neighbour.  

   Erik wills two gifts to slide over to them. Charles was absolutely mesmerized by his unique power. "How are you so buff?" Nope. That came out all wrong. "I mean, how are you not fat?" Okay, that wasn't better at all. Maybe the third time really is the charm. "What I meant to say is, with powers like that I would never need to walk again. You can just bring everything to you, well almost anything." Charles easily picks up on Erik's amusement.

   Even though he didn't show it, Erik  
was suddenly very self-conscious of his body. He was so tired and worn-out that it didn't even register in his mind that he was shirtless. "I guess the secret is raising twin toddlers. Now _there's_ a workout."

   "They must be really great if you're putting yourself through all this." Charles finds a crinkled paper scrap that was approximately the right size for the small storybook _Das kleine Gespenst._ "Tell me about them, do they speak German too?"

   Erik's face proudly lights up as he begins to talk about his children. "There's two of them, of course. They're three years old and yes, they speak German just as well as English or the other way around. I'm still not sure where they stand on the whole first and second language scale. Wanda is my beautiful and sweet _Prinzessin_ and Pietro is my little Scheißer _._ " He stops abruptly, face dropping. " _Scheißer,_ as in...in the endearing way. Don't take it the wrong way, he's a great kid and I really do love him, it's just kind of an inside joke I have with myself."

   "I'm not even going to pretend I know what you mean." Charles presses the last piece of tape over the corner of a perfectly wrapped present.

    "How the f-How did you do that?" Erik had become so used to censoring himself -English wise- around his children that he didn't even to consciously try anymore. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

   Charles tilts his head to the left. "Have you never wrapped a present before?"

   "Why else did you think I was so bad at this? This is my first holiday without my wife and she was the one that used to do all of this." Erik slams a piece of wrapping paper down on a box and frowns when it doesn't stick magically.

   Charles takes gift from Erik's hands and begins wrapping it properly. "So...you're divorced? I'm sorry to hear that."

   "It's fine, really. Everything is still good between us. Marriages just don't tend to last very long after both people realize they're gay." 

   "Oh." He's gay? The hot shirtless neighbour that just invited a complete stranger into his children's home is  a homosexual homosuperior? Charles reminds himself to leave out a extra cookies for Santa. Clearly he's been nice this year.

  Erik thought he was seeing things at first, there was no way Charles was smiling to himself after a confession like that, but he looks up and their eyes meet. Charles chews his bottom lip and bashfully averts his gaze. He _was_ smiling. "Charles?" Erik had to get the question out before he lost his confidence.

   " _Erik_?" Charles mocks playfully.

   "If you don't have any plans...you're welcome to spend Christmas here with me- _us_. There's a guest room that you can sleep in after we get these presents done. I promise to keep my thoughts down and everything."

   "You know what?" Charles leans forwards, chuckling. Erik couldn't help but lean in closer as well. They were still quite a little ways apart from each other, but that didn't stop the goosebumps from forming on both their arms. "That sounds perfect."

   Erik reaches out with his powers and scans the area. He finds what he was looking for and brings it over to them by the tiny silver bells. Erik looks up, and Charles follows his gaze.

   "You know, I'd call you out on cheating but I've wanted to kiss you the moment you opened the door." Charles couldn't believe this nights very drastic turn of events.

   Erik jingles the mistletoe above them impatiently. "Well then kiss me."

   "-but the presents-" Charles weakly protests. Just one more word from Erik and he'd crumble like a tower of cards.

   "-will be there in the morning. You know kids, I'm sure they'll be just as ecstatic as if they were wrapped." Erik tugs Charles forward by the sleeves of his pyjamas. "Kiss me." So Charles does. And so much more.

   _Suck it, Raven. You had to go all the way to Italy to get laid and all I had to do was walk a few feet._

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:  
> Prinzessin - Princess  
> Scheiße - Shit  
> Das kleine Gespenst - The Little Ghost: A Germans children's book  
> Everything else is well...creative...if you're really curious, feel free to translate.


End file.
